u/TravelingTice

Does anyone know of a tool or browser extension or something to hide any AI written text on my social media feeds like Reddit or Linkedin??

If I see another emdash I LOSE IT

27M with experience making online startups for about 3 years. So far failed with about 7 startups. They range from a quotation app for Chinese factory owners (went to China 2 times to promote) to an AI startup for Reddit (most recent flop)

Currently just seeking some sparring to see what worked for you and what angle I could take a look at next. My most recent lesson was the concept of "red ocean blue ocean" so I'm trying to find market opportunities that aren't served yet. Mostly need advice on where to look and what the most important thing to do is when you are "startupless"

Thanks a lot!

Dear fellow indiehackers 👋

Time for yet another post. Because time for yet another lesson from a failed startup 😂

I feel like every startup gives me another lesson. For Mascotly AI it was "build something people actually need" and for my current one (it's called "Reach Out Right", a tool that surfaces people talking about the problem your startup solves on Reddit) it's the concept of "red ocean blue ocean".

It's funny that I have read and heard about this concept before, probably read many times about what it is, but it never fully "landed" until now.

With "Reach Out Right" I bet on Reddit DM as the outreach channel, as that is what my app specialized in. I basically used it myself which had 2 benefits: 1 I could improve the app as I went and 2 I could use its value to reach out to people who were talking about the problem.

But already from the start there were cracks in the system.

First, it's not efficient. Having to reach out one by one (it doesn't generate AI messages, that's the "human" part to not come over sloppy) was still taking a lot of time. Analyzing posts from a specific user, then evaluating what to send them, sometimes even prepping their own dashboard for their startup, 1 reachout could easily cost 20 minutes. And I couldn't do more than 8 a day before I was mentally exhausted (next to a full-time job).

Secondly, and this is the big one, I was trying to sell in a red ocean. And that's incredibly hard. There are TONS of AI outreach tools out there. All geared towards fellow solofounders or early traction people. The noise is overwhelming. So my one DM would sound similar to probably 10 others these people received (I mean I even receive them myself). I would get a response from a lot of them, like 20% response rate, but then that next step was always tough, I got lost in the noise.

And then I get into this emotional state, where I try to hype myself up. No! We don't give up until we sent 100 DMs!!! We go all night!! Success is close!!! I forget anything else. Become emotional. My wife notices.

And then.... I burn out. I don't do any of it. The flame runs out. I give up. And I can't even get myself to send a response to someone. I want to throw it all way.

Now I'm on the other end. Calmed down a bit, gave it a couple of days, and then took on this new lesson.

I watched a video recently of Rob on X who basically explained why so many startups fail why a few win. It basically comes down to having to wait for the wave to come, instead of trying to make your own. I was trying to make my own wave. Trying to force success. But you can't do that. You just have to learn to listen to the waves. See the opportunities.

I also learnt that I need to spend a lot more time "where the action happens". Like on X or on Reddit. Engage. Ask questions. Get a picture of what is going on in the real world. On the side build a bit of a personal brand (these reddit posts are also part of that) and then just wait until you see that wave. Then take action.

As part of this "be where the action happens" I also want to make a request: is there anyone that would be willing to do a 30 minute mentor session with me? I recently had a call with someone I just met on Twitter, and it was really nice being able to speak face to face to someone from this indie hacker world. In my daily live I'm not really surrounded by those kind of people so it was incredibly eye opening. I'm just looking for someone who reads this and thinks that they are a bit further a long on this journey. Or someone who knows what kind of advice I need to hear. Would be greatly appreciated!

As for now, I'll just be present more. Engage more with others. Document my journey more on Reddit and X. And only really take action when I see an opportunity that I would be able to execute on.

Hi fellow indiehackers 👋

Well today I have not too positive news unfortunately.. I didn't launch a startup within the 30 day threshold, so I got kicked 😢 I can still read along on the discord but cannot post any messages. There is even a tweet on my failure.

I owe it completely to myself though. I have been building a new startup in the past month, but just haven't come along as far as I would've hoped. Also I currently don't want to focus on a "launch" campaign, as I'm still refining the product, so I'm starting with a direct outreach approach first for people who need my product.

Also, I have been building pretty much non-stop since March, and together with a full-time job I noticed my mind and body just needed a rest. I took a week off, and only after that week did I realize how tired I actually was 😅

But owing it to just that wouldn't do it justice I think. I also think that for me the benefits of ship or die had started to wear off. The discord was more and more starting to become just the same bunch of people talking together, it was becoming more of a distraction than a benefit for me. Also the community has definitely calmed down since launch so I think a combination of those factors caused me to just not have the motivation to round up my product into a launch it wasn't ready for.

Still, the public "shame" (even though it went rather unnoticed) and the fact I didn't make it, can play parts. I'm mentally in a much better place now, and also feel that through the past months I've become way more active in "free" communities like on X or here on Reddit. So did I feel bad? Maybe for a moment, but it doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. I'll just keep focusing on my product. My goal is simple now: 1 customer in the next week. I'm only doing what it takes to get there. Which means no feature building anymore, just personal outreach to people who need my product here on Reddit.

Still looking back, joining Ship or Die has been a positive thing for me. It taught me to bet on myself and be active in a small little community of fellow builders. It showed me where I am on my path and that it's really possible to achieve success. Not sure about the $250 price tag though, it seems a bit steep for this lesson and 2 months of these "perks". But still this was their experiment as well and in the beginning you don't know how things pan out.

Keep building, keep shipping, keep showing up where your target audience is. Don't give up 💪

Over the past 3 years I've launched various different SaaS projects and other online startups, and I usually do it in the same cycle: have fun idea, spend months building it, launch..... nothing. The feeling of that "nothing" is quite indescribable. It's fascinating how you can go from "I'll be rich" and "this is going to be amazing" to "this is absolutely hopeless". You conclude the project wasn't meant to be. You discard it. You move on to the next thing.

But over the years I've started to believe that it probably wasn't the product's fault. I see many startups that actually originate in a good idea. Maybe it needs some tweaking here and there, but that comes when you distribute.... and don't give up after hearing crickets.

But that's the key... we hit this incredible incredible low after launch and hearing nothing. And we decide to give up. Totally understandable of course. You just spent months building it and see no traction, that would be demotivating for anyone.

So if it's not the product.... then is it us? The builders? I believe it is. We have to change our mindset and approach from the start. In the beginning, when you get a good idea, our tendency is to keep it secret. Keep it in our heads and on our localhost projects. This feels safe. As the idea is alive (but only in our heads).

No, instead you should shout your idea out there from the start! And receive feedback from the first moment. Scared your idea might get stolen? I do get that but I also learnt that people care less about your ideas than you might think. They are busy with their own anyways. But this is really important. Because this initial feedback is KEY. Getting this as early as possible is what prevents you from this crash after launch, as you can keep your expectations in check.

I'm sharing this because I'm working on my (idk I think 7th) startup but I finally decided to flip the script. And instead of starting to build the product, start creating posts about my idea and the problem it tries to solve on places like Reddit and X. Getting that early feedback or validation in. I just finished creating a landing page, but already pivoted on at least 1 idea, because people mentioned that that might be more valuable than I initially thought. Imagine having spent a month building that feature that turned out to be less valuable!!

So not sure where to go with this. But I guess it might be an inner outcry. Please when you read this, and you know you've been postponing your launch because you're "scared" of.... hearing nothing. Then maybe it's time to face reality and feel that pain. Get over with it. And then learn from that feedback and keep building. Because that moment is only the start of the looong journey.

In my recent post I shared that I was starting to work on a new problem. I received a lot of good feedback and pointers on that post, so thank you so much for that 🙏 It's a problem that I think all of us indie hackers are struggling with: getting those initial users for our apps.

I'm really passionate about this problem. First and foremost, because I have experienced this problem over and over again myself. The no. 1 reason I give up on a product that I have spent many hours in, is because I never really thought about marketing or distribution. I launch the app on Twitter, Producthunt and all of those "normal" channels. To just hear crickets. That in itself is extremely demotivating. Sapping all of my energy and will-power to do the additional work of actually trying to find users for my product, writing a message for them, managing follow-up, probably also to arrive at more... crickets. More nothing.... and then it's time to build something new 😄

We believe our products that end up on the graveyard belong there. That they will never take off. That it was not meant to be.

But what if there was someone who would greatly benefit from our product? Are we fully 100% sure no one wants this, even though we subconsciously take that conclusion? We know marketing is a numbers-game. So why do we give up after 30 cold emails, even though response rate can be 1% even if we only reach out to the right people for our product?

Most of us solo founders are natural builders. Building is easy. There is a clear finish line. When the features are in and working, we're "done". For marketing there is no such clear finish line at all. It's messy, it's coincidental and there is no clear way on how to do it. You subject yourself to all sorts of (negative) feedback and before you know it you want to go back to coding, that at least does what you say...

So based on this narrative I think what would be really helpful is if there was a system that would make outreach much much easier to do. If we could just lower the barrier to creating that cold-email and clicking send, without having an AI generate it for us and risk this back-firing hard (many people mentioned this) because the message is not ours to begin with. AI can get us so far, but it cannot fully automate this yet.

But there is a lot AI can do. It can for example find threads on Reddit or X, create a little summary of where your product could help here, and give you some pointers into how you could hook into that conversation. So we can definitely use its power, but use it right.

You might know where I'm going with this 😅 but I just created a landing page for a startup that tries to address these problems. Making the distribution part easier to do... and less annoying and messy. I was also for example thinking of sending you reminders to follow up, which then open a page where you instantly see 1 your previous message and 2 some pointers on how to follow up. This makes making the message the easy part.

So it's basically a tool that lowers the barrier and makes reaching out for solo founders who don't like reaching out more bearable 😅 of course as always I'd love your feedback on it. Roast it or tell me what it's missing. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

As requested in a recent post of mine, people are curious to know about my experience with the program "Ship or Die" which is a startup launched by famous indie hackers Jack Friks and Marc Lou over a month ago and where you pay $250 once to be part of a community of "shippers". You turn yourself into a pirate and pledge an oath to ship a product in 30 days or else get kicked out of the community.

I initially joined this community because it came at the right time. I was hitting a low because a startup I was working on wasn't gaining traction, and I lost motivation for it. I needed some accountability and when I heard about "ship or die" I gave it some thought, but decided to join, which was a big step because I never spent so much money on myself in this indie hacker journey. I made a post at the time when I started, which you can read here.

When I started I decided to work on a totally new startup called "Mascotly AI" which was completely unvalidated and a bit useless, but it was fun to work on 😄 My mistake was that I took a long time before I "went public" with my idea, only when I was close to launching. This community was quite active in the beginning and I think I could've received a lot more feedback if I shared the landing page as soon as it was ready for example. They have a #roast-me channel where you can give and receive feedback.

I launched it after 2 weeks and how it works is you make a launch post on twitter and then submit it for review on the Ship or Die dashboard. After 2 days or so I had a message back and Marc Lou had actually looked at it. He "rejected" it with a few points of feedback, which was nice though! Also that triggered an automatic post on Twitter (Ship or Die has its own twitter so you get a bit of exposure from it there. Marc Lou then also commented on it on twitter so there was a tiny bit of exposure there.

After a month after it launched, the community is calming down a bit I feel. The discord is a bit less active, it's usually the same 10 or so people that are the most active there. Jack Friks is still quite active in the discord but it's gotten less as well. I don't think it's giving the same value as it was when it just launched. I think they have a hard time thinking on what to do next. Also because it was a 1-time payment so there is not really an incentive for them other than offering something that is paid again..

So if you're still considering joining then I'd think twice for now. I think it's still good for accountability and you're in a small group of fellow shippers which can be really helpful as I've learnt. It really helped me getting out of my shell more and just share updates/progress etc more.. but at the same time I started using X more and now I share progress and interact more on X as well.

Let me know if you want to know anything else about this. I'm still very glad I joined at the time. It has definitely helped me in my indie hacker journey and I've had some very nice interactions on the platform.

And also yes people have been thrown overboard already as they didn't ship within 30 days ☠️ they not messing around haha

Hello fellow indiehackers! After my latest startup exactly went as I anticipated (crickets 😄) for my next startup I really want to act on this lesson: build something that solves a real problem.

And I think for me and probably most fellow solo founders the biggest problem is marketing after building your product. Getting those early users. It's what a lot of the posts in this subreddit are about. Getting stuck and then burning out after you launched your product and realized you had no idea how to find the exact user that needs what you've built.

It's sad though because you never really get to know whether your product could've been a success or not. Just because you don't have the power + knowledge to reach in the nooks and crannies of the internet to find the user or group that needs your product. It's a different kind of task. One that doesn't have a clear "finish line" unlike building a product. One that doesn't have a clear outcome. You keep aiming in the dark until you finally hit that result... or you never try enough times and start to convince yourself there is no result... that all there is is darkness... ignorance... and you slowly and quietly give up... and build the next thing. Just to repeat that cycle.

It's a problem I deal with myself and know wholeheartedly. This might help me to stay motivated for this new startup. As I know I'll be solving a problem I have myself as well. Also the "target audience" is... right here in this subreddit 😄 so they are easy to find. Also because I have the problem myself, I'll be able to know whether the product I make is "good" because I will definitely be using it myself.

So dear community, please tell me your story! Do you feel the same pain? And where do you usually get stuck? Is it also after you sent out 20 or so cold emails and receive no reply? What part of the marketing process do you hate the most? And maybe a question that currently sparks some debate: would you let AI write your outreach messages/emails?

Also there are probably a gazillion tools out there that try to solve this problem. Do you have any experience with them? Found any that solve this specific problem? And if not, what would you be looking for in a product that addresses this problem?

I have some thoughts of a product that scrapes Reddit or Linkedin and creates this "customer profiles" with a small summary of the person's concerns/mentions of the product, after which you can start creating a personalized message to send. As well as some kind of "tracker" so things like following-up becomes easier (I currently use an excel sheet for it but it's annoying)

Let me know any of your thoughts!!! I'm excited for this one 😄

Hi fellow indiehackers! It's me again with another post about my latest solo founder startup venture. In my last post I talked about how I was scared of rejection, but I was getting better as I did start to recognize it myself and act anyways.

Yesterday was the day and my latest startup "Mascotly AI" launched!! You can roast my website all you want, I'd say it's one of the best designs I've ever made (with the help of AI of course 😂).

The launch again was quite underwhelming (just 1 twitter like 🥹) but at least I haven't yanked it yet lol.

So far I've already learnt many things. Like planning your launch properly as well as preparing all the marketing materials beforehand. I think a lot of people are doing it wrong: building and then marketing once you launch, while actually you should be STARTING with marketing, even before you made your app! I lost steam on this project about halfway through, and since a week I have been doing daily updates on X which helped me a lot to stay consistent and get ready for this launch. I still did it a bit haphazardly, but I am on a timer (remember I'm in "Ship or die" have to launch within 30 days!) and the next 2 weeks I'll be on a trip, so I had to launch a bit faster than usual.

I think for me it would already be a win if I kept going at least a little bit. Since launch I've felt the tendency to totally "abandon ship" again and I think I will allow myself to work on something new soon after, but I will not treat this project as "totally a failure". I can leave it out there, mention it lightly, keep making posts, do a proper ProductHunt launch (it's up today on PH!) maybe do the effort to ACTUALLY find people that MIGHT want it 😅

But for sure the next app I'm building I'm going to find Reddit threads or anything that would indicate a need for this app and it can actually help people. I'm done with building out ideas that I only think are "fun" 🤣

Hi everyone! This is a follow-up post on my last one 10 days ago where I joined the "Ship or Die" challenge from Marc Lou and Jack Friks. I paid $250 to get access to a group of fellow builders, having to launch their project in 30 days and risk being banned from the community.

So far I'm still quite impressed. The community is getting better and Marc and Jack are putting in a lot of effort, providing us with a lot of learning material and more challenges. They are also going to host talks where they chat with us, so they really seem to want to play the long game as long as the community is vibrant, which is a good thing. They also started a new type of 30 day challenge which is "marketing" which might be something for me 😅

Anyways, for me personally the past 10 days have been quite the mix of emotions. From feeling "Limitless" to down and imposter again. I'm currently in a bit of a down episode. I have actually been productive for the past 10 days though. I made a product which works as an MVP, I just need to improve the landing page and it's basically ready to launch. Yet I'm still not too happy with the way I've done it. 2 main things:

1. As I "ran into a wall" with my last startup... feeling like "there was no way out", for this new challenge I decided to pick a totally different idea. An idea that, again yes, came out of self-interest and not customer validation. I have no idea if this idea will even work. Basically skipping the lesson I'd taken so much time to learn 😅
2. I have been active in the community, but I have made no tweets or posts or anything sharing my building journey. Missing out on a lot of initial feedback. I've been waiting to finish my landing page before I want to post my app in the "Roast me" section on the Discord of "Ship or Die" but I even feel like I'm postponing that 🤣

I think behind all of this is a fear that is probably caused by past events. I had built a startup before which no one wanted, and I think that fear of rejection has really ingrained itself in me. About 3 weeks ago I also built a small thing (a chrome extension that detects AI slop in Reddit posts) but yanked it after launching it for a week, just because the initial traction wasn't what I expected it to be (I expected virality of course, but there were 24 downloads after the initial launch!)

At least I'm aware of the problem, but seeing other people launching and building sometimes doesn't help bcs I start feeling like I'm an imposter again and will feel less of myself. I just have to keep my expectations at bay and focus on just taking the next step, however small it is. And also stick with it and not make emotionally driven decisions to quit or change course.

Anyways, if you have any tips on how to deal with this then please let me know 😄 One thing I've really enjoyed is writing these Reddit posts, people seem to like them. Thanks a lot for all the appreciation 🙏

For the past 2 weeks or so, I've felt a bit stuck with my startup. Instead of building more features, I went back to the drawing table and decided to do market research first. Listing out potential users of my app and trying to approach them. I tried cold emails, and even cold calls. Unfortunately, I didn't get the response I entirely hoped for and got a bit down on myself. Started overthinking.... and putting things off.

But then this new startup landed on my twitter feed, which was called "Ship or Die". Basically ship your app in 30 days or get locked out of the community. At first I was quite hesitant, as the downside is quite harsh (get thrown overboard), but it did stuck with me for a few reasons:

- Be close to the people "in the same boat" which can help make you feel less alone
- Get closer to already successful people like the founders Jack Friks and Marc Lou
- Can help "get out of your head" by calling for help or stressing over the 30 day limit 😅

Now I feel quite nervous spending $250 (a lot of money!) on something that might not work out. I've never spent so much money "betting on myself", and I'm feeling quite imposter right now 😅 but let's see where the next 30 days will get me. I will keep you posted on my experience!

Hi dear Indiehacker community!

The past 2 weeks or so have been quite a transition for my mindset towards what to build. I used to build something I thought was cool and could "seemingly" solve a lot of problems, but when it came to distribution, I always hit a wall. People would react with nice words, they thought the product was awesome, my builder skills were great, but then... nothing. I realized that all these words of encouragement, all these positive reactions.. they were all lies.

I read "The Mom Test" last week and that was what brought it all together for me. Especially from what I experienced in the past 2 years (see my other post on an app I went to China for 3 times to promote). We talked to our target audience, pitched our app probably 50-100 times over a 4 week period. We refined this pitch and got a positive reaction out of the people we were trying to sell to 80% of the time. Yet after all this efforts, nothing fruitful has come of it. No follow-ups, no callbacks, it was essentially dead again the day I arrived back in my country after the trip.

We built something no one wanted to buy. And that had some good reasons. The problem just wasn't big enough. We had some competitors, but they solved a whole array of problems, all at once, for these Chinese factory owners. Just having 1 problem solved, yet having to do a lot of admin work upfront just wasn't worth it. These are great learnings to have now. But I think I could've learnt these things way earlier, and probably just on 1 trip to China, instead of 3.

If I had just talked to our target audience, without pitching our product, just asking curiously which problems they were currently facing. What their focus was. What was causing their greatest leverage. I probably would've built a totally different product if at all. I think after just 3 conversations, I would've picked up the onboarding admin cost would've been too much. Or even that the problem we were trying to solve (quotation sheets) was very low in their priority list.

But I'm glad I have learnt these lessons now. It made me look very differently at how the world works. Why some problems have been solved, but others haven't. It's all about whether people feel there is enough value in solving the problem, that they're willing to pay money for it. No money is no viable business. I will take these learnings with me on my next startup venture. Talking to our target audience first. Talking until my picture is complete. What problems do they have? What are they spending a lot of time and money on? Is it the same as I thought? Would a product be able to made to solve their needs? Only after answering these questions fully will I build again.

Recently I've been a bit more active on Reddit, as I'm building another startup. I made a post recently where I asked for feedback of an early version of that app and a lot of people mentioned that it looked like I was falling into the "builder trap". As I'm trying to learn from this, I want to share a personal experience of a startup I was focused on for most of 2024 and 2025, where I was most likely in a similar trap 😅

A friend of mine, who has spent 10+ years in the China import-export business had an idea for an app that would solve a big pain point that a lot of Chinese factory owners seemed to have. As a factory owner in China, a big part of getting customers is being present at "trade shows" where foreign buyers would come and make in-person connections with your factory's sales team present there. This process is usually not very smooth. Exchange of business cards. Samples can be picked out, but a customer only really makes a decision based on a quotation sheet from the factory.

This quotation sheet could come in a week later, or even longer, after which you've forgotten about your impression with the factory (you might talk to 20+ similar ones at the show) which highly impacts your decision making. Also, this quotation sheet would usually be a "Chinglish" excel sheet that was confusing and not very professional. Not a very good impression.

Our app would tackle these 2 pain points: Create this quotation sheet right when you have that first customer interaction, and make it look professional with using our quotation templates. A "product database quote engine": Get your products in before the show, churn out a customized professional-looking quote while you talk with your customer.

Over the course of 2024 I basically solo-built this. My cofounder didn't know how to code, so he was doing the marketing side of things. Also we lived on the opposite side of the world (me in Taiwan, he in the US). I spent a lot a lot of time adding features like a business card scanner, even a whole system where the tool worked offline as the wifi at the trade show can be spotty.

Then in October of 2024 me and my cofounder met up in China and we decided to try to find beta-users. This is where the actual growth happened I think. We learnt a lot on this trip. Talked a lot of our target audience. We refined our sales pitch, and ended up with a large list of improvements to make. But we were convinced we had something, as most of the response from people we talked to was very good, but we didn't find anyone willing to put in their items and beta test it.

Then in 2025, my cofounder kinda made other life plans and didn't prioritize the project, but I felt that as I have already put so much into this project myself, I did want to continue. So I basically took the learnings from that trip, made slight improvements to the app, overcame my fears and went back to the trade show in October of 2025 myself.

And I had some results. I landed a customer! But I think mostly because the boss liked me as a person. But as he was planning to be at the show, I made it my goal to set up the app for him, basically do all the manual preparations he had to do (input item info etc). I even helped printing small QR code stickers and paste them on every displayed item of his collection. He was totally set up. I felt like I had reached my goal. He would be convinced of the value, and the rest would be easy now I thought.

But... he didn't use it. His colleagues didn't use it. No one did... and that was a gut punch. I thought it was so weird, because when we demoed this product and did our sales pitch, everyone was convinced. We got so much positive feedback. Yet no one went through, set up the product and started using it. And I thought, it would be really difficult to make it viable, if it took this much effort to "convert" a customer.. but not even really converting.

So.. I'm still kinda processing the lesson here I guess, but nonetheless I have no regrets. I learnt a lot about the import-export world, had an amazing adventure in China, and above all, gained a great level of self-esteem because I decided to continue with it myself. Even though I essentially failed.

Let me know what you think. Was this the builder trap? Or was this just a quirk of Chinese culture and not trusting a Western face to sell them software 😂 Any tips, feedback or any encouragement would be greatly appreciated.